New leadership teams bring new visions, new hope for their communities

New teams of leadership will take office next week in Jackson County's four municipalities, bringing a fresh dose of optimism and visions for our future.

Three cities have new mayors -- Jim Blevins in Pascagoula, Billy Broomfield in Moss Point and Gordon Gollott in Gautier -- and Connie Moran begins her third term as mayor of Ocean Springs.

Pascagoula has a completely new City Council while the council and boards of the other cities had some turnover.

Although they don't officially take office until Monday, many of the teams -- Pascagoula in particular since they are all first-timers -- have been meeting in advance to formulate strategies, prioritize plans and prepare to hit the ground running for those first meetings Tuesday night.

Many important, difficult decisions await them and the solutions to some of the problems will require some outside-the-box thinking, knowing the managed risk ultimately will be worth the reward.

The next four years will be vital to our economic development and growth opportunities.

We thank the outgoing leaders for their public service the past four years. We look forward to working with the incoming leadership teams to help maximize our enormous potential.